What I have done the past year is spend a lot of time with my grands, and I'm still cyber schooling two of them.
I've heard from a lot of authors that their creativity sank to nothing last year. My writing was the same. I just ... couldn't. Except for bits and pieces. Instead, I returned heavily to my art (drawing and painting and some bits of sculpting).
While it was frustrating to not have my stories come willingly over the past year, it was nice to find my art resurgence. Every down has an up.
As of now, the new Songwriters book is zooming along (knock on wood) and I'm looking at a (hopeful) late summer release. This one is related to the first novella I had accepted to an anthology, A Melody in the Dark, one of five stories in Music of the Heart, a through 5 decades anthology with 5 different authors. The anthology will be pulled off the market this month. If you want to grab it before it goes, you can only find it HERE in eBook and print until sometime in April 2021, OR get it HERE in print from my local store that offers low cost shipping, even after April, since I will have them stocked there while my supplies last. If you scroll to the bottom of the check out screen to "special instructions" you can request a personally signed copy. It may take a bit longer to arrive, and be sure to mark how you want it signed, but I'll gladly go to the store and sign it for you. Again, while supplies last. I only have a handful of them left. When they're gone, they're gone. My other books are there, as well. Just search Ella M. Kaye.
As for how the new book is related to the novella, A Melody in the Dark features Meladee Dillon, a struggling songwriter with a young child she's raising alone in the 1970s, until she meets Niall Dillon, a general handyman/laborer born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. The new Songwriters novel features Meladee's granddaughter, Isabel, also a struggling songwriter who refuses to use her grandma's fame to launch herself, but can't resist when a local boy who knows a little something about music wants to help launch her career. Isabel's grandparents still live in Pittsburgh, but her favorite place in the world is Presque Isle in Erie, PA, so she lives in between the two. It features many towns in between the two cities, as well as the cities themselves.
This book will include original songs, and with any luck, a couple of them might get music added so you can hear them as well as reading them.
If you want a preview, grab the novella and get introduced to Isabel's grandparents. Then watch for the new release, tentatively titled "The Texture of Glass" based on the sea glass Isabel loves.